Disputes in the construction sector taking longer to resolve

Gary Kitt

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“Projects are increasing in complexity and so too are the disputes”

When parties in the construction sector fault to see eye-to-eye, serious problems can come about and impact on projects. In 2012, the average length of disputes rose across Asia, the Middle East and the UK and disputes are taking longest to resolve in the Middle East, where disputes lasted 14.6 months on average, although Asia was not far behind with 14.3 months.

In contrast, disputes in the US and Europe were becoming quicker to resolve in 2012, with US disputes taking slightly under a year (11.9 months) to resolve.

Although the average value of global disputes was similar to 2011, this masked some variations across the different regions. In the UK, where dispute values have been well below the global average over the past two years, construction disputes jumped to an average value of US$27 million, more than double the US$10.2 million value in 2011.